
Class Jl_ 



\ '7 



Book. 7// 



CopglrtN°_/2M 



COPYRIGHT DEPOStn 



CHARACTER 

heroism. 




' EnlersoTh 



^.M. Caldwell Co. 
New York^^ Boston. 



42807 



L.ibp«ry of Congre^e 

Two Copies Received 
SEP 4 1900 

Copyright •ntry 

^,...4<.2../5.2«... 

SECOND COPV. 
OKOtti CMVISION, 

I SF P 10 1900 



'^^He^i 






Copyright, igoo 
By H. M. Caldwell Co. 



74:4:^ifc3 



Character 



I 



character 

The sun set ; but set not his hope : 
Stars rose ; his faith was earUer up : 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy. 
Deeper and older seemed his eye : 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time. 
He spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the Age of Gold again : 
His action won such reverence sweet. 
As hid all measure of the feat. 

Work of his hand 
He nor commends nor grieves : 
Pleads for itself the fact ; 
As unrepenting Nature leaves 
Her every act. 



^ Character 

T HAVE read that those who listened 
to Lord Chatham felt that there was 
something finer in the man than any- 
thing which he said. It has been com- 
plained of our brilliant English historian 
of the French Revolution, that when 
he has told all his facts about Mir- 
abeau, they do not justify his esti- 
mate of his genius. The Gracchi, 
Agis, Cleomenes, and others of Plu- 
tarch's heroes, do not in the record 
of facts equal their own fame. Sir 
Philip Sidney, the Earl of Essex, Sir 
Walter Raleigh, are men of great 
figure, and of few deeds. We cannot 
find the smallest part of the personal 
weight of Washington in the narrative 
of his exploits. The authority of the 
name of Schiller is too great for his 
books, This inequality of the reputa- 



Character ^ 

tion to the works or the anecdotes Is 
not accounted for by saying that the 
reverberation is longer than the thun- 
der-clap ', but somewhat resided in these 
men which begot an expectation that 
outran all their " performance. The 
largest part of their power was latent. 
This is that which we call Character, — 
a reserved force which acts directly by 
presence, and without means. It is 
conceived of as a certain undemon- 
strable force, a Familiar or Genius, by 
whose impulses the man is guided, but 
whose counsels he cannot impart ; 
which is company for him, so that 
such men are often solitary, or if they 
chance to be social, do not need society, 
but can entertain themselves very well 
alone. The purest literary talent 
appears at one time great, at another 
3 



-^ Character 

time small, but character is of a stellar 
and undiminishable greatness. What 
others effect by talent or by eloquence, 
this man accomplishes by some mag- 
netism. " Half his strength he put 
not forth." His victories are by dem- 
onstration of superiority, and not by 
crossing of bayonets. He conquers, 
because his arrival alters the face of 
affairs. " O lole ! how did you know- 
that Hercules was a god ? " " Be- 
cause," answered lole, " I was content 
the moment my eyes fell on him. When 
I beheld Theseus, I desired that I 
might see him offer battle, or at least 
guide his horses in the chariot-race ; 
but Hercules did not wait for a con- 
test ; he conquered whether he stood, 
or walked, or sat, or whatever thing he 
did." Man, ordinarily a pendant to 
4 



Character ^ 

events, only half attached, and that 
awkwardly, to the world he lives in, 
in these examples appears to share the 
life of things, and to be an expression 
of the same laws which control the 
tides and the sun, numbers and quanti- 
ties. 

But to use a more modest illustra- 
tion, and nearer home, I observe, that 
in our political elections, where this 
element, if it appears at all, can only 
occur in its coarsest form, we suf- 
ficiently understand its incomparable 
rate. The people know that they 
need in their representative much more 
than talent, namely, the power to make 
his talent trusted. They cannot come 
at their ends by sending to Congress a 
learned, acute, and fluent speaker, if he 
be not one who, before he was ap- 
5 



^ Character 

pointed by the people to represent 
them, was appointed by Almighty God 
to stand for a fact, — invincibly per- 
suaded of that fact in himself, — so 
that the most confident and the most 
violent persons learn that here is re- 
sistance on which both impudence and 
terror are wasted, namely, faith in a 
fact. The men who carry their points 
do not need to inquire of their constitu- 
ents what they should say, but are 
themselves the country which they 
represent : nowhere are its emotions 
or opinions so instant and true as in 
them ; nowhere so pure from a selfish 
infusion. The constituency at home 
hearkens to their words, watches the 
colour of their cheek, and therein, as in 
a glass, dresses its own. Our public 
assemblies are pretty good tests of 
6 



Character ^ 



manly force. Our frank countrymen 
of the West and South have a taste for 
character, and like to know whether the 
New Englander is a substantial man, or 
whether the hand can pass through 
him. 

The same motive force appears in 
trade. There are geniuses in trade, as 
well as in war, or the state, or letters ; 
and the reason why this or that man is 
fortunate, is not to be told. It lies in 
the man : that is all anybody can tell 
you about it. See him, and you will 
know as easily why he succeeds as if 
you saw Napoleon you would compre- 
hend his fortune. In the new objects 
we recognise the old game, the habit of 
fronting the fact, and not dealing with 
it at second hand, through the percep- 
tions of somebody else. Nature seems 
7 



■^ Character 

to authorise trade, as soon as you see 
the natural merchant, who appears not 
so much a private agent, as her factor 
and Minister of Commerce. His nat- 
ural probity combines with his insight 
into the fabric of society to put him 
above tricks, and he communicates to 
all his own faith, that contracts are of 
no private interpretation. The habit 
of his mind is a reference to standards 
of natural equity and public advantage ; 
and he inspires respect, and the wish to 
deal with him, both for the quiet spirit 
of honour which attends him, and for 
the intellectual pastime which the spec- 
tacle of so much ability affords. This 
immensely stretched trade, which makes 
the capes of the Southern Ocean his 
wharves, and the Atlantic Sea his fa- 
miliar port, centres in his brain only ; 
8 



Character ^ 

and nobody in the universe can make 
his place good. In his parlour I see 
very well that he has been at hard 
work this morning, with that knitted 
brow, and that settled humour, which 
all his desire to be courteous cannot 
shake off. I see plainly how manv 
firm acts have been done ; how many 
valiant noes have this day been spoken, 
when others would have uttered ruin- 
ous yeas. I see, with the pride of art, 
and skill of masterly arithmetic and 
power of remote combination, the 
consciousness of being an agent and 
playfellow of the original laws of the 
world. He too believes that none can 
supply him, and that a man must be 
born to trade, or he cannot learn it. 

This virtue draws the mind more, 
when it appears in action to ends not 
9 



-^ Character 

so mixed. It works with most energy 
in the smallest companies and in pri- 
vate relations. In all cases, it is an 
extraordinary and incomputable agent. 
The excess of physical strength is 
paralysed by it. Higher natures over- 
power lower ones by affecting them 
with a certain sleep. The faculties 
are locked up, and ofFer no resistance. 
Perhaps that is the universal law. 
When the high cannot bring up the 
low to itself, it benurhbs it, as man 
charms down the resistance of the 
lower animals. Men exert on each 
other a similar occult power. How 
often has the influence of a true 
master realised all the tales of magic ! 
A river of command seemed to run 
down from his eyes into all those who 
beheld him, a torrent of strong sad 



Character ^ 

light, Hke an Ohio or Danube, which 
pervaded them with his thoughts, and 
coloured all events with the hue of his 
mind. " What means did you em- 
ploy ? " was the question asked of the 
wife of Concini, in regard to her treat- 
ment of Mary of Medici ; and the 
answer was, " Only that influence 
which every strong mind has over a 
weak one." Cannot Caesar in irons, 
shuffle off the irons, and transfer them 
to the person of Hippo or Thraso the 
turnkey ? Is an iron handcuff so im- 
mutable a bond ? Suppose a slaver on 
the coast of Guinea should take on 
board a gang of negroes, which should 
contain persons of the stamp of Tous- 
saint L'Ouverture : or, let us fancy, 
under these swarthy masks he has a 
gang of Washingtons in chains. When 






Character 



they arrive at Cuba, will the relative 
order of the ship's company be the 
same ? Is there nothing but rope and 
iron ? Is there no love, no reverence ? 
Is there never a glimpse of right in a 
poor slave-captain's mind ; and cannot 
these be supposed available to break, 
or elude, or in any manner overmatch 
the tension of an inch or two of iron 
ring ? 

This is a natural power, the light 
and heat, and all nature cooperates 
with it. The reason why we feel 
one man's presence, and do not feel an- 
other's is as simple as gravity. Truth 
is the summit of being : justice is the 
application of it to affairs. All in- 
dividual natures stand in a scale, ac- 
cording to the purity of this element 
in them. The will of the pure runs 

12 



Character 



^^4. 



down from them into other natures, 
as water runs down from a higher into 
a lower vessel. This natural force is 
no more to be withstood than any 
other natural force. We can drive a 
stone upward for a moment into the 
air, but it is yet true that all stones 
will for ever fall j and whatever in- 
stances can be quoted of unpunished 
thefts, or of a lie which somebody 
credited, justice must prevail, and it 
is the privilege of truth to make itself 
believed. Character is this moral order 
seen through the medium of an in- 
dividual nature. An individual is an 
encloser. Time and space, liberty and 
necessity, truth and thought, are left 
at large no longer. Now, the universe 
is a close or pound. All things exist 
in the man tinged with the manners of 
13 



^ Character 

his soul. With what quality is in him, 
he infuses all nature that he can reach ; 
nor does he tend to lose himself in 
vastness, but, at how long a curve 
soever, all his regards return into his 
own good at last. He animates all he 
can, and he sees all he animates. He 
encloses the world, as the patriot does 
his country, as a material basis for his 
character, and a theatre for action. A 
healthy soul stands united with the 
Just and the True, as the magnet 
arranges itself with the pole, so that 
he stands to all beholders like a trans- 
parent object between them and the 
sun, and whoso journeys toward the 
sun, journeys toward that person. He 
is thus the medium of the highest in- 
fluence to all who are not on the same 
level. Thus, men of character are the 
H 



Character ^ 

conscience of the society to which they 
belong. 

The natural measure of this power 
is the resistance of circumstances. Im- 
pure men consider life as it is reflected 
in opinions, events, and persons. They 
cannot see the action until it is done. 
Yet its moral element preexisted in 
the actor, and its quality as right or 
wrong it was easy to predict.' Every- 
thing in nature is bipolar, or has a 
positive and negative pole. There is 
a male and a female, a spirit and a 
fact, a north and a south. Spirit is 
the positive, the event is the negative. 
Will is the north, action the south 
pole. Character may be ranked as 
having its natural place in the north. 
It shares the magnetic currents of the 
system. The feeble souls are drawn 
15 



^ Character 

to the south or negative pole. They 
look at the profit or hurt of the action. 
They never behold a principle until it 
is lodged in a person. They do not 
wish to be lovely, but to be loved. 
The class of character like to hear of 
their faults ; the other class do not like 
to hear of faults ; they worship events ; 
secure to them a fact, a connection, a 
certain chain of circumstances, and 
they will ask no more. The hero 
sees that the event is ancillary j it 
must follow him. A given order of 
events has no power to secure to him 
the satisfaction which the imagination 
attaches to it ; the soul of goodness 
escapes from any set of circumstances, 
while prosperity belongs to a certain 
mind, and will introduce that power 
and victory which is its natural fruit, 
i6 



Character ^ 

into any order of events. No change 
of circumstances can repair a defect of 
character. We boast our emancipation 
from many superstitions ; but if we 
have broken any idols, it is through a 
transfer of the idolatry. What have I 
gained, that I no longer immolate a 
bull to Jove, or to Neptune, or a 
mouse to Hecate ; that I do not tremble 
before the Eumenides, or the Catholic 
Purgatory, or the Calvinistic Judg- 
ment-day, — if I quake at opinion, 
the public opinion, as we call it ; or 
at the threat of assault, or contumely, 
or bad neighbours, or poverty, or muti- 
lation, or at the rumour of revolution, 
or of murder ? If I quake, what 
matters it what I quake at ? Our 
proper vice takes form in one or 
another shape, according to the sex, 
17 



^ Character 

age, or temperament of the person, 
and, if we are capable of fear, will 
readily find terrors. The covetous- 
ness, or the malignity which saddens 
me, when I ascribe it to society, is 
my own. I am always environed by 
myself. On the other part, rectitude 
is a perpetual victory, celebrated not 
by cries of joy, but by serenity, which 
is joy fixed or habitual. It is disgrace- 
ful to fly to events for confirmation of 
our truth and worth. The capitalist 
does not run every hour to the broker, 
to coin his advantages into current 
money of the realm ; he is satisfied to 
read in the quotations of the market, 
that his stocks have risen. The same 
transport which the occurrence of the 
best events in the best order would 
occasion me, I must learn to taste 
i8 



^• 



purer in the perception that my posi- 
tion is every hour meUorated,'' and does 
already command those events I desire. 
That exultation is only to be checked 
by the foresight of an order of things 
so excellent as to throw all our pros- 
perities into the deepest shade. 

The face which character wears to 
me is self-sufficingness. I revere the 
person who is riches ; so that I cannot 
think of him as alone, or poor, or 
exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as 
perpetual patron, benefactor, and beati- 
fied man. Character is centrality, the 
impossibility of being displaced or 
overset. A man should give us a 
sense of mass. Society is frivolous, 
and shreds its day into scraps, its con- 
versation into ceremonies and escapes. 
But if I go to see an ingenious man, 
19 



^ Character 

I shall think myself poorly entertained 
if he give me nimble pieces of benevo- 
lence and etiquette ; rather he shall 
stand stoutly in his place, and let me 
apprehend, if it were only his resist- 
ance ; know that I have encountered a 
new and positive quality, — great re- 
freshment for both of us. It is much^ 
that he does not accept the conven- 
tional opinions and practices. That 
non-conformity will remain a goad 
and remembrancer, and every inquirer 
will have to dispose of him, in the 
first place. There is nothing real or 
useful that is not a seat of war. Our 
houses ring with laughter and personal 
and critical gossip, but it helps little. 
But the uncivil, the unavailable man, 
who is a problem and a threat to so- 
ciety, whom it cannot let pass in si- 



Character ^ 

lence, but must either worship or hate, 
— and to whom all parties feel related, 
both the leaders of opinion, and the 
obscure and eccentric, — he helps ; he 
puts America and Europe in the 
wrong, and destroys the skepticism 
which says, " man is a doll, let us 
eat and drink, 'tis the best we can 
do," by illuminating the untried and 
unknown. Acquiescence in the es- 
tablishment, and appeal to the public, 
indicate infirm faith, heads which are 
not clear, and which must see a house 
built before they can comprehend the 
plan of it. The wise man not only 
leaves out of his thought the many, 
but leaves out the few. Fountains, 
fountains, the self-moved, the ab- 
sorbed, the commander because he is 
commanded, the assured, the primary, 



^ Character 

— they are good ; for these announce 
the present pressure of supreme power. 

.Our action should rest mathemati- 
cally on our substance. In nature 
there are no false valuations. A pound 
of water in the ocean-tempest has no 
more gravity than in a midsummer 
pond. All things work exactly accord- 
ing to their quality, and according to 
their quantity ; attempt nothing they 
cannot do, except man only. He has 
pretention ; he wishes and attempts 
things beyond his force. I read in 
a book of English memoirs, " Mr. 
Fox (afterward Lord Holland) said, 
he must have the Treasury ; he had 
served up to it, and would have it." 

Xenophon and his Ten Thousand 
were quite equal to what they attempted 
and did it ; so equal that it was not 



Character ^ 

suspected to be a grand and inimitable 
exploit. Yet there stands that fact 
unrepeated, a high water mark in mili- 
tary history. Many have attempted 
it since and not been equal to it. It 
is only on reality, that any power 
of action can be based. No institu- 
tion will be better than the institutor. 
I knew an aimable and accomplished 
person who undertook a practical 
reform, yet I was never able to find 
in him the enterprise of love he took 
in hand. He adopted it by ear and 
by the understanding from the books 
he had been reading. All his action 
was tentative, a piece of the city 
carried out into the fields, and was 
the city still and no new fact, and 
could not inspire enthusiasm. Had 
there been something latent in the 



^ Character 

man, a terrible undemonstrated genius 
agitating and embarrassing his de- 
meanour, we had watched for its 
advent. It is not enough that the 
intellect should see the evils and their 
remedy. We shall still postpone our 
existence, nor take the ground to which 
we are entitled, while it is only a 
thought, and not a spirit that incites 
us. We have not yet served up to 
it. 

These are properties of life, and 
another trait is the notice of incessant 
growth. Men should be intelligent 
and earnest. They must also make 
us feel that they have a controlling, 
happy future opening before them, 
which sheds a splendour on the passing 
hour. The hero is misconceived and 
misreported : he cannot therefore wait 
24 



Character 






to unravel any man's blunders ; he is 
again on his road, adding new powers 
and honours to his domain, and new 
claims on your heart, which will bank- 
rupt you, if you have loitered about 
the old things, and have not kept 
your relation to him by adding to 
your wealth. New actions are the 
only apologies and explanations of old 
ones which the noble can bear to offer 
or to receive. If your friend has 
displeased you, you shall not sit down 
to consider it, for he has already lost 
all memory of the passage, and has 
doubled his power to serve you, and, 
ere you can rise up again, will burden 
you with blessings. 

We have no pleasure in thinking 
of a benevolence that is only measured 
by its works. Love is inexhaustible, 



^ Character 

and if its estate is wasted, its granary 
emptied, still cheers and enriches, and 
the man, though he sleep, seems to 
purify the air, and his house to adorn 
the landscape and strengthen the laws. 
People always recognise this difference. 
We know who is benevolent, by quite 
other means than the amount of sub- 
scription to soup-societies. It is only 
low merits that can be enumerated. 
Fear, when your friends say to you 
that you have done well, and say it 
through ; but when they stand with 
uncertain timid looks of respect and 
half dislike, and must suspend their 
judgment for years to come, you may 
begin to hope. Those who live to 
the future must always appear selfish 
to those who live to the present. 
Therefore it was droll in the good 
26 



Character ^ 

Riemer, who has written memoirs of 
Goethe, to make out a Hst of his 
donations and good deeds, as, so many 
hundred thalers given to Stilling, to 
Hegel, to Tischbein ; a lucrative place 
found for Professor Voss, a post under 
the Grand Duke for Herder, a pension 
for Meyer, two professors recom- 
mended to foreign universities, etc., 
etc. The longest lists of specifica- 
tions of benefit would look very short. 
A man is a poor creature, if he is 
to be measured so. For all these, 
of course, are exceptions ; and the rule 
and hodiernal life of a good man is 
benefaction. The true charity of 
Goethe is to be inferred from the 
account he gave Doctor Eckermann, 
of the way in which he had spent his 
fortune. " Each bon-mot of mine 
27 



^ Character 

has cost a purse of gold. Half a 
million of my own money, the fortune 
I inherited, my salary, and the large 
income derived from my writings for 
fifty years back, have been expended to 
instruct me in what I now know. I 
have besides seen," etc. 

I own it is but poor chat and gossip 
to go to enumerate traits of this simple 
and rapid power, and we are painting 
the lightning in charcoal ; but in these 
long nights and vacations I like to 
console myself so. Nothing but it- 
self can copy it. A word warm from 
the heart enriches me. I surrender 
at discretion. How death-cold is liter- 
ary genius before this fire of life ! 
These are the touches that reanimate 
my heavy soul, and give it eyes to 
pierce the dark of nature. I find, 
28 



Character ^ 

where I thought myself poor, there 
was I most rich. Thence comes a 
new intellectual exaltation, to be again 
rebuked by some new exhibition of 
character. Strange alternation of at- 
traction and repulsion ! Character 
repudiates intellect, yet excites it ; and 
character passes into thought, is pub- 
lished so, and then is ashamed before 
new flashes of moral worth. 

Character is nature in the highest 
form. It is of no use to ape it, or 
to contend with it. Somewhat is 
possible of resistance, and of persist- 
ence, and of creation, to this power, 
which will foil all emulation. 

This masterpiece is best where no 

hands but nature's have been laid on 

it. Care is taken that the greatly 

destined shall slip up into life in the 

29 



^ Character 

shade, with no thousand-eyed Athens 
to watch and blazon every new 
thought, every blushing emotion of 
young genius. Two persons lately 
— very young children of the most 
high God — have given me occasion 
for thought. When I explored the 
source of their sanctity, and charm 
for the imagination, it seemed as if 
each answered, " From my non-con- 
formity ; I never listened to your 
people's law, or to what they call 
their gospel, and wasted my time. I 
was content with the simple rural 
poverty of my own ; hence this sweet- 
ness ; my work never reminds you of 
that, — is pure of that." And nature 
advertises me in such persons that, in 
democratic America, she will not be 
democratised. How cloistered and 
30 



Character ^ 

constitutionally sequestered from the 
market and from scandal ! It was only 
this morning that I sent away some 
wild flowers of these wood-gods. They 
are a relief from literature, — these fresh 
draughts from the sources of thought 
and sentiment j as we read, in an age 
of polish and criticism, the first lines 
of written prose and verse of a nation. 
How captivating is their devotion to 
their favourite books, whether ^Eschy- 
lus, Dante, Shakespeare, or Scott, as 
feeling that they have a stake in that 
book ; who touches that, touches them ; 
and especially the total solitude of the 
critic, the Patmos of thought from 
which he writes, in unconsciousness 
of any eyes that shall ever read this 
writing. Could they dream on still, 
as angels, and not wake to comparisons 
31 



^ Character 

and to be flattered ! Yet some natures 
are too good to be spoiled by praise, 
and wherever the vein of thought 
reaches down into the profound, there 
is no danger from vanity. Solemn 
friends will warn them of the danger 
of the head's being turned by the flour- 
ish of trumpets, but they can afford 
to smile. I remember the indignation 
of an eloquent Methodist at the kind 
admonitions of a Doctor of Divinity, 
— "My friend, a man can neither 
be praised nor insulted." But forgive 
the counsels ; they are very natural. 
I remember the thought which occurred 
to me when some ingenious and spiritual 
foreigners came to America was. Have 
you been victimised in being brought 
hither ? or, prior to that, answer me 
this: "Are you victimisable ? " 
32 



Character ^ 

As I have said, nature keeps these 
sovereignties in her own hands, and 
however pertly our sermons and disci- 
plines would divide some share of 
credit, and teach that the laws fashion 
the citizen, she goes her own gait, 
and puts the wisest in the wrong. 
She makes very light of gospels and 
prophets, as one who has a great many 
more to produce, and no excess of time 
to spare on any one. There is a class 
of men, individuals of which appear 
at long intervals, so eminently endowed 
with insight and virtue, that they have 
been unanimously saluted as divine^ 
and who seem to be an accumulation 
of that power we consider. Divine 
persons are character born, or, to bor- 
row a phrase from Napoleon, they are 
victory organised. They are usually 
33 



^ Character 

received with ill-will, because they are 
new, and because they set a bound 
to the exaggeration that has been made 
of the personality of the last divine 
person. Nature never rhymes her 
children, nor makes two men alike. 
When we see a great man, we fancy 
a resemblance to some historical per- 
son, and predict the sequel of his 
character and fortune, a result which 
he is sure to disappoint. None will 
ever solve the problem of his character 
according to our prejudice, but only in 
his own high unprecedented way. Char- 
acter wants room ; must not be crowded 
on by persons, nor be judged from 
glimpses got in the press of affairs 
or on few occasions. It needs per- 
spective, as a great building. It may 
not, probably does not, form relations 
34 



Character ^ 

rapidly ; and we should not require 
rash explanation, either on the popular 
ethics, or on our own, of its action. 

I look on Sculpture as history. I 
do not think the Apollo and the Jove 
impossible in flesh and blood. Every 
trait which the artist recorded in stone, 
he had seen in life, and better than his 
copy. We have seen many counter- 
feits, but we are born believers in great 
men. How easily we read in old 
books, when men were few, of the 
smallest action of the patriarchs. We 
require that a man should be so large 
and columnar in the landscape that it 
should deserve to be recorded that he 
arose and girded up his loins and de- 
parted to such a place. The most 
credible pictures are those of majestic 
men who prevailed at their entrance 



^ Character 

and convinced the senses, as hap- 
pened to the Eastern magian who was 
sent to test the merits of Zertusht or 
Zoroaster. When the Yunani sage 
arrived at Balkh, the Persians tell us, 
Gushtasp appointed a day on which the 
Mobeds of every country should as- 
semble, and a golden chair was placed 
for the Yunani sage. Then the be- 
loved of Yezdam, the prophet Zer- 
tusht, advanced into the midst of the 
assembly. The Yunani sage, on see- 
ing that chief, said, " This form and 
this gait cannot lie, and nothing but 
truth can proceed from them." Plato 
said, it was impossible not to believe in 
the children of the gods, " though they 
should speak without probable or neces- 
sary arguments." I should think my- 
self very unhappy in my associates, if 
3^ 



Character ^ 

I could not credit the best things in 
history. "John Bradshaw," says Mil- 
ton, " appears like a counsel, from 
whom the fasces are not to depart with 
the year; so that -not on the tribunal 
only, but throughout his life, you would 
regard him as sitting in judgment upon 
kings.'* I find it more credible since it 
is anterior information, that one man 
should know heaven^ as the Chinese 
say, than that so many men should 
know the world. " The virtuous prince 
confronts the gods without any mis- 
giving. He waits a hundred ages till 
a sage comes, and does not doubt. He 
who confronts the gods, without any 
misgiving, knows heaven ; he who waits 
a hundred ages until a sage comes, 
without doubting, knows men. Hence 
the virtuous prince moves, and for ages 



■^ Character 

shows empire the way." But there is 
no need to seek remote examples. He 
is a dull observer whose experience has 
not taught him the reality and force of 
magic, as well as of chemistry. The 
coldest precisian cannot go abroad 
without encountering inexplicable in- 
fluences. One man fastens an eye on 
him, and the graves of the memory 
render up their dead ; the secrets that 
make him wretched either to keep or 
to betray, must be yielded ; another, 
and he cannot speak, and the bones of 
his body seem to lose their cartilages ; 
the entrance of a friend adds grace, 
boldness, and eloquence to him ; and 
there are persons, he cannot choose 
but remember, who gave a transcen- 
dent expansion to his thought, and 
kindled another life in his bosom. 
38 



Character 



f^ 



What is so excellent as strict rela- 
tions of amity, when they spring from 
this deep root ? The sufficient reply to 
the skeptic, who doubts the power and 
the furniture of man, is in that possibil- 
ity of joyful intercourse with persons 
which makes the faith and practice of 
all reasonable men. I know nothing 
which life has to offer so satisfying as 
the profound good understanding which 
can subsist, after much exchange of 
good offices, between two virtuous 
men, each of whom is sure of him- 
self, and sure of his friend. It is a 
happiness which postpones all other 
gratifications, and makes politics, and 
commerce, and churches cheap. For 
when men shall meet as they ought, 
each a benefactor, a shower of stars 
clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with 
39 






Character 



accomplishments, it should be the festi- 
val of nature which all things announce. 
Of such friendship, love in the sexes is 
the first symbol, as all other things are 
symbols of love. Those relations to 
the best men which, at one time, we 
reckoned the romances of youth, be- 
come, in the progress of the character, 
the most solid enjoyment. 

If it were possible to live in right 
relations with men ! — if we could 
abstain from asking anything of them, 
from asking their praise, or help, or 
pity, and content us with compelling 
them through the virtue of the eldest 
laws ! Could we not deal with a few 
persons — with one person — after the 
unwritten statutes, and make an experi- 
ment of their efficacy ? Could we not 
pay our friend the compliment of truth, 
40 



Character ^ 

of silence, of forebearing ? Need we 
be so eager to seek him ? If we 
are related, we shall meet. It was a 
tradition of the ancient world that no 
metamorphosis could hide a god from 
a god ; and there is a Greek verse which 
runs, 

** The Gods are to each other not unknown." 

Friends also follow the laws of divine 
necessity ; they gravitate to each other, 
and cannot otherwise : 

''When each the other shall avoid. 
Shall each by each be most enjoyed." 

Their relation is not made, but 
allowed. The gods must seat them- 
selves without seneschal in our Olym- 
pus, and as they can install themselves 
by seniority divine. Society is spoiled, 
41 



^ Character 

if pains are taken, if the associates are 
brought a mile to meet. And if it be 
not society, it is a mischievous, low, 
degrading jangle, though made up of 
the best. All the greatness of each 
is kept back, and every foible in 
painful activity, as if the Olym- 
pians should meet to exchange snuff- 
boxes. 

Life goes headlong. We chase some 
flying scheme, or we are hunted by 
some fear or command behind us. But 
if suddenly we encounter a friend, we 
pause ; our heat and hurry look foolish 
enough ; now pause, now possession is 
required, and the power to swell the 
moment from the resources of the 
heart. The moment is all, in all noble 
relations. 

A divine person is the prophecy of 
42 



Character ^ 

the mind ; a friend is the hope of the 
heart. Our beatitude waits for the 
fulfilment of these two in one. The 
ages are opening this moral force. All 
force is the shadow or symbol of that. 
Poetry is joyful and strong, as it draws 
its inspiration thence. Men write their 
names on the world, as they are filled 
with this. History has been mean ; 
our nations have been mobs ; we have 
never seen a man : that divine form we 
do not yet know, but only the dream 
and prophecy of such : we do not know 
the majestic manners which belong to 
him, which appease and exalt the be- 
holder. We shall one day see that the 
most private is the most public energy, 
that quality atones for quantity, and 
grandeur of character acts in the dark, 
and succours them who never saw it. 
43 






Character 



What greatness has yet appeared is be- 
ginnings and encouragements to us in 
this direction. The history of those 
gods and saints which the world has 
written, and then worshipped, are docu- 
ments of character. The ages have 
exulted in the manners of a youth who 
owed nothing to fortune, and who was 
hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, 
who, by the pure quality of his nature, 
shed an epic splendour around the facts 
of his death, which has transfigured 
every particular into an universal sym- 
bol for the eyes of mankind. This 
great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. 
But the mind requires a victory to the 
senses, a force of character which will 
convert judge, jury, soldier, and king; 
which will rule animal and mineral 
virtues, and blend with the courses of 
44 



sap, of rivers, of winds, of stars, and 
of moral agents. 

If we cannot attain at a bound to 
these grandeurs, at least let us do them 
homage. In society, high advantages 
are set down to' the possessor as dis- 
advantages. It requires the more wari- 
ness in our private estimates. I do not 
forgive in my friends the failure to 
know a fine character and to entertain 
it with thankful hospitality. When, 
at last, that which we have always 
longed for is arrived, and shines on us 
with glad rays out of that far celestial 
land, then to be coarse, then to be 
critical, and treat such a visitant with 
the jabber and suspicion of the streets, 
argues a vulgarity that seems to shut 
the doors of heaven. This is confu- 
sion, this the right insanity, when the 
45 



^ Character 

soul no longer knows its own, nor 
where its allegiance, its religion, are 
due. Is there any religion but this to 
know, that wherever in the wide desert 
of being the holy sentiment we cherish 
has opened into a flower it blooms for 
me ? If none sees it, I see it ; I am 
aware, if I alone, of the greatness of 
the fact. While it blooms I will keep 
sabbath or holy time and suspend my 
gloom and my folly and jokes. Nature 
is indulged by the presence of this 
guest. There are many eyes that can 
detect and honour the prudent and 
household virtues ; there are many that 
can discern Genius on his starry track, 
though the mob is incapable ; but 
when that love which is all-suffering, 
all-abstaining, all-aspiring, which has 
vowed to itself that it will be a wretch 
46 



Character 






and also a fool in this world sooner 
than soil its white hands by any com- 
pliances, comes into our streets and 
houses, — only the pure and aspiring 
can know its face, and the only com- 
pliment they can pay it is to own it. 



47 



Heroism 



Heroism 

" Paradise is under the shadow of swords." 

— Mahomet. 
TN the elder English dramatists, and 
mainly in the plays of Beaumont and 
Fletcher, there is a constant recogni- 
tion of gentility, as if a noble beha- 
viour were as easily marked in the 
society of their age, as colour is in our 
American population. When any Rod- 
rigo, Pedro, or Valerio enters, though 
he be a stranger, the duke or governor 
exclaims. This is a gentleman, — and 
proffers civilities without end ; but all 
the rest are slag and refuse. In har- 
51 



^ Heroism 



mony with this delight in personal ad- 
vantages, there is in their plays a 
certain heroic cast of character and 
dialogue — as in Bonduca, Sophocles, 
the Mad Lover, the Double Marriage 

— w^herein the speaker is so earnest 
and cordial, and on such deep grounds 
of character, that the dialogue, on the 
slightest additional incident in the plot, 
rises naturally into poetry. Among 
many texts, take the following. The 
Roman Martius has conquered Athens, 

— all but the invincible spirits of 
Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and 
Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of 
the latter inflames Martius, and he 
seeks to save her husband ; but Soph- 
ocles will not ask his life, although 
assured that a word will save him, 
and the execution of both proceeds. 

52 



H( 



** Valerius. Bid thy wife farewell. 

Soph. No, I will take no leave. My 
Dorigen, 
Yonder, above, 'bout Ariadne's crown. 
My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. 
Dor. Stay, Sophocles — with this, tie up 
my sight ; 
Let not soft nature so transformed be. 
And lose her gentler sexed humanity. 
To make me see my lord bleed. So, 'tis 

well ; 
Never one object underneath the sun 
Will I behold before my Sophocles : 
Farewell ; now teach the Romans how to 
die. 
Mar. Dost know what 'tis to die ? 
Soph. Thou dost not, Martius, 
And therefore, not what 'tis to live ; to die 
Is to begin to live. It is to end 
An old, stale, weary work, and to commence 
A newer, and a better. 'Tis to leave 



53 



^ Heroism 

Deceitful knaves for the society 

Of gods and goodness. Thou, thyself, 

must part 
At last, from all thy garlands, pleasures, 

triumphs. 
And prove thy fortitude what then 'twill do. 
Fa/. But art not grieved nor vexed to 

leave thy life thus ? 
Sopb. Why should I grieve or vex for 

being sent 
To them I ever loved best ? Now, I'll kneel. 
But with my back toward thee ; 'tis the last 

duty 
This trunk can do the gods. 

Mar. Strike, strike, Valerius, 
Or Martius' heart will leap out at his mouth : 
This is a man, a woman ! Kiss thy lord. 
And live with all the freedom you were wont. 
O love ! thou doubly hast afflicted me 
With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous 

heart. 



54 



Heroism ^ 

My hand shall cast the quick into my urn. 
Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. 

Val. What ails my brother ? 

Soph. Martius, oh Martins, 
Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. 

Dor. O star" of Rome ! what gratitude 
can speak 
Fit words to follow such a deed as this ? 

Mar. This admirable duke, Valerius, 
With his disdain of fortune and of death, 
Captived himself, has captived me. 
And though my arm hath ta'en his body here. 
His soul hath subjugated Martius' soul. 
By Romulus, he is all soul, I think ; 
He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved ; 
Then we have vanquished nothing ; he is free. 
And Martius walks now in captivity." 

I do not readily remember any poem, 

play, sermon, novel, or oration, that 

our press vents in the last few years, 

which goes to the same tune. We 

55 



■^ Heroism 

have a great many flutes and flageolets, 
but not often the sound of any fife. 
Yet, Wordsworth's Laodamia, and the 
ode of" Dion," and some sonnets, have 
a certain noble music \ and Scott vi^ill 
sometimes draw a stroke like the por- 
trait of Lord Evandale, given by Bal- 
four of Burley. Thomas Carlyle, with 
his natural taste for what is manly and 
daring in character, has suffered no 
heroic trait in his favourites to drop 
from his biographical and historical 
pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns has 
given us a song or two. In the Har- 
leian Miscellanies, there is an account 
of the battle of Lutzen, which de- 
serves to be read. And Simon Ock- 
ley's History of the Saracens recounts 
the prodigies of individual valour with 
admiration, all the more evident on the 
56 



Heroism ^ 

part of the narrator, that he seems to 
think that his place in Christian Ox- 
ford requires of him some proper pro- 
testations of abhorrence. But if we 
explore the literature of Heroism, we 
shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is 
its Doctor and historian. To him we 
owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epam- 
inondas, the Scipio of old, and I must 
think we are more deeply indebted to 
him than to all the ancient writers. 
Each of his " Lives " is a refutation to 
the despondency and cowardice of our 
religious and political theorists. A wild 
courage, a stoicism not of the schools, 
but of the blood, shines in every an- 
ecdote, and has given that book its 
immense fame. 

We need books of this tart cathartic 
virtue, more than books of political 
57 



-5^ H 



eroism 



science, or of private economy. Life 
is a festival only to the wise. Seen 
from the nook and chimney-side of 
prudence, it wears a ragged and danger- 
ous front. The violations of the laws 
of nature by our predecessors and our 
contemporaries, are punished in us also. 
The disease and deformity around us 
certify the infraction of natural, in- 
tellectual, and moral laws, and often 
violation on violation to breed such 
compound misery. A lockjaw, that 
bends a man's head back to his heels, 
hydrophobia, that makes him bark at 
his wife and babes, insanity, that makes 
him eat grass j war, plague, cholera, 
famine, indicate a certain ferocity in 
nature, which, as it had Its inlet by 
human crime, must have its outlet by 
human suffering. Unhappily, almost 
58 



H( 



no man exists who has not in his own 
person become, to some amount, a 
stockholder in the sin, and so made 
himself liable to a share in the expia- 
tion. 

Our culture, therefore, must not 
omit the arming of the man. Let him 
hear in season that he is born into the 
state of war, and that the common- 
wealth and his own well-being require 
that he should not go dancing in the 
weeds of peace, but warned, self-col- 
lected, and neither defying nor dread- 
ing the thunder, let him take both 
reputation and life in his hand, and 
with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet 
and the mob by the absolute truth of 
his speech and the rectitude of his 
behaviour. 

Toward all this external evil the 
59 



^ Heroism 

man within the breast assumes a war- 
like attitude, and affirms his ability to 
cope single-handed with the infinite 
army of enemies. To this military 
attitude of the soul we give the name 
of Heroism. Its rudest form is the 
contempt for safety and ease which 
makes the attractiveness of war. It is 
a self-trust which slights the restraints 
of prudence in the plenitude of its 
energy and power to repair the harms 
it may suffer. The hero is a mind of 
such balance that no disturbances can 
shake his will, but pleasantly, and, as 
it were, merrily, he advances to his 
own music, alike in frightful alarms, 
and in the tipsy mirth of universal 
dissoluteness. There is somewhat not 
philosophical in heroism ; there is some- 
what not holy in it ; it seems not to 
60 



Heroism ^ 

know that other souls are of one tex- 
ture with it ; it hath pride ; it is the 
extreme of individual nature. Never- 
theless, we must profoundly revere it. 
There is somewhat in great actions 
which does not allow us to go be- 
hind them. Heroism feels and never 
reasons, and therefore is always right, 
and although a different breeding, dif- 
ferent religion, and greater intellectual 
activity would have modified, or even 
reversed the particular action, yet for 
the hero, that thing he does is the 
highest deed, and is not open to the 
censure of philosophers or divines. It 
is the avowal of the unschooled man, 
that he finds a quality in him that is 
negligent of expense, of health, of life, 
of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and 
that he knows that his will is higher 
6i 



^ Heroism 

id more excellent than all actual and 
all possible antagonists. 

Heroism works in contradiction to 
the voice of mankind, and in contra- 
d'ction, for a time, to the voice of the 
great and good. Heroism is an obedi- 
ence to a secret impulse of an indi- 
vidual's character. Now to no other 
man can its wisdom appear as it does 
to him, for every man must be sup- 
posed to see a little farther on his own 
proper path, than any one else. There- 
fore, just and wise men take umbrage 
at his act, until after some little time 
be past : then, they see it to be in 
unison with their acts. All prudent 
men see that the action is clean con- 
trary to a sensual prosperity ; for every 
heroic act measures itself by its con- 
tempt of some external good. But it 
62 



Heroism ^ 

finds its own success at last, and then 
the prudent also extol. 

Self-trust is the essence of heroism. 
It is the state of the soul at war, and 
its ultimate objects are the last defiance 
of falsehood and wrong, and the power 
to bear all that can be inflicted by evil 
agents. It speaks the truth, and it is 
just. It is generous, hospitable, temper- 
ate, scornful of petty calculations, and 
scornful of being scorned. It persists ; 
it is of an undaunted boldness, and of 
a fortitude not to be wearied out. Its 
jest is the littleness of common life. 
That false prudence which dotes on 
health and wealth, is the foil, the butt, 
and merriment of heroism. Heroism, 
like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its 
body. What shall it say, then, to the 
sugar-plums, and cats'-cradles, to the 
63 






eroism 



toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards, and 
custard, which rack the wit of all human 
society r What joys has kind nature 
provided for us dear creatures ! There 
seems to be no interval between great- 
ness and meanness. When the spirit 
is not master of the world, then is it 
dupe. Yet the little man takes the 
great hoax so innocently, works in it 
so headlong and believing, is born red, 
and dies gray, arranging his toilet, at- 
tending on his own health, laying traps 
for sweet food and strong wine, setting 
his heart on a horse or a rifle, made 
happy with a little gossip, or a little 
praise, that the great soul cannot 
choose but laugh at such earnest non- 
sense. " Indeed, these humble con- 
siderations make me out of love with 
greatness. What a disgrace is it to me 
64 



Heroism ^ 

to take note how many pairs of silk 
stockings thou hast, namely, these and 
those that were the peach-coloured ones 
or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, 
as one for superfluity, and one other 
for use." 

Citizens, thinking after the laws of 
arithmetic, consider the inconvenience 
of receiving strangers at their fireside, 
reckon narrowly the loss of time and 
the unusual display : the soul of a better 
quality thrusts back the unreasonable 
economy into the vaults of life, and 
says, I will obey the God, and the 
sacrifice and the fire he will provide. 
Ibn Hankal, the Arabian geographer, 
describes a heroic extreme in the hos- 
pitality of Sogd, in Bokhara. " When 
I was in Sogd I saw a great building, 
like a palace, the gates of which were 
65 



^ Heroism 

open and fixed back to the wall with 
large nails. I asked the reason, and 
was told that the house had not been 
shut, night or day, for a hundred years. 
Strangers may present themselves at 
any hour, and in whatever number ; 
the master has amply provided for the 
reception of the men and their animals, 
and is never happier than when they 
tarry for some time. Nothing of the 
kind have I seen in any other country." 
The magnanimous know very well 
that they who give time, or money, 
or shelter, to the stranger, — so it be 
done for love, and not for ostentation, 
— do, as it were, put God under obli- 
gation to them, so perfect are the com- 
pensations of the universe. In some 
way the time they seem to lose is re- 
deemed, and the pains they seem to 
66 



Heroism ^ 



take remunerate themselves. These 
men fan the flame of human love and 
raise the standard of civil virtue amono- 

o 

mankind. But hospitality must be for 
service, and not for show, or it pulls 
down the host. The brave soul rates 
itself too high to value itself by the 
splendour of its table and draperies. It 
gives what it hath, and all it hath, but 
its own majesty can lend a better grace 
to bannocks and fair water, than be- 
long to city feasts. 

The temperance of the hero pro- 
ceeds from the same wish to do no 
dishonour to the worthiness he has. 
But he loves it for its elegancy, not 
for its austerity. It seems not worth 
his while to be solemn, and denounce 
with bitterness flesh-eating, or wine- 
drinking, the use of tobacco, or opium, 
^7 



^ Heroism 

or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man 
scarcely knows how he dines, how he 
dresses, but without railing or preci- 
sion, his living is natural and poetic. 
John Eliot, the Indian Apostle, drank 
water, and said of wine, " It is a no- 
ble, generous liquor, and we should be 
humbly thankful for it. But, as I 
remember, water was made before it." 
Better still, is the temperance of King 
David, who poured out on the ground 
unto the Lord the water which three 
of his warriors had brought him to 
drink, at the peril of their lives. 

It Is told of Brutus, that when he 
fell on his sword, after the battle of 
Philippi, he quoted a line of Euripi- 
des, " O virtue, I have followed thee 
through life, and I find thee at last but 
a shade." I doubt not the hero is 
68 



H( 



slandered by this report. The heroic 
soul does not sell its justice and its 
nobleness. It does not ask to dine 
nicely, and to sleep warm. The es- 
sence of greatness is the perception 
that virtue is enough. Poverty is its 
ornament. Plenty, it does not need, 
and can very well abide its loss. 

But that which takes my fancy 
most, in the heroic class, is the good 
humour and hilarity they exhibit. It 
is a height to which common duty can 
very well attain, to sufFer and to dare 
with solemnity. But these rare souls 
set opinion, success, and life at so 
cheap a rate, that they will not soothe 
their enemies by petitions, or the show 
of sorrow, but wear their own habitual 
greatness. Scipio, charged with pecu- 
lation, refuses to do himself so great a 
69 



^ Heroism 

disgrace as to wait for justification, 
though he had the scroll of his ac- 
counts in his hands, but tears it to 
pieces before the tribunes. Socrates's 
condemnation of himself to be main- 
tained in all honour in the Prytaneum, 
during his life, and Sir Thomas More's 
playfulness at the scaffold, are of the 
same strain. In Beaumont and Fletch- 
er's " Sea Voyage," Juletta tells the 
stout captain and his company, 

^*Jul. Why, slaves, 'tis in our power to 
hang ye. 
Master. Very likely, 

'Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and 
scorn ye." 

These replies are sound and whole. 
Sport is the bloom and glow of a 
perfect health. The great will nor 



Heroism ^ 

condescend to take anything seriously ; 
all must be as gay as the song of a 
canary, though it were the building of 
cities or the eradication of old and 
foolish churches and nations, which 
have cumbered the earth long thou- 
sands of years. I Simple hearts put all 
the history and customs of this world 
behind them, and play their own play 
in innocent defiance of the Blue-Laws 
of the world ; and such would appear, 
could we see the human race assembled 
in vision, like little children frolicking 
together, though, to the eyes of man- 
kind at large, they wear a stately and 
solemn garb of works and influences. [ 
The interest these fine stories have 
for us, the power of a romance over 
the boy who grasps the forbidden book 
under his bench at school, our delight in 
71 



•^ Heroism 

the hero, is the main fact to our pur- 
pose. All these great and transcendent 
properties are ours. If we dilate in be- 
holding the Greek energy, the Roman 
pride, it is that we are already domesti- 
cating the same sentiment. Let us 
find room for this great guest in our 
small houses. The first step of worthi- 
ness will be to disabuse us of our 
superstitious associations with places 
and times, with number and size. 
Why should these words, Athenian, 
Roman, Asia, and England, so tingle 
in the ear ? Let us feel that where the 
heart is, there the muses, there the gods 
so sojourn, and not in any geography 
of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut 
River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry 
places, and the ear loves names of 
foreign and classic topography. But 
72 



H. 



here we are ; that is a great fact, and, 
if we will tarry a little, we may come 
to learn that here is best. See to it 
only that thyself is here ; and art and 
nature, hope and dread, friends, angels 
and the Supreme Being, shall not be 
absent from the chamber where thou 
sittest. Epaminondas, brave and affec- 
tionate, does not seem to us to need 
Olympus to die upon, nor the Syrian 
sunshine. He lies very well where he 
is. The Jerseys were handsome ground 
enough for Washington to tread, and 
London streets for the feet of Milton. 
A great man illustrates his place, makes 
his climate genial in the imagination of 
men, and its air the beloved element 
of all delicate spirits. That country 
is the fairest, which is inhabited by the 
noblest minds. The pictures which 
73 



^=5 J- J- 



eroism 



fill the imagination in reading the 
actions of Pericles, Xenophon, Colum- 
bus, Bayard, Sidney, Hampden, teach 
us how needlessly mean our life is, that 
we, by the depth of our living, should 
deck it with more than regal or na- 
tional splendour, and act on principles 
that should interest man and nature in 
the length of our days. 

We have seen or heard of many 
extraordinary young men, who never 
ripened, or whose performance in actual 
life was not extraordinary. When we 
see their air and mien, when we hear 
them speak of society, of books, of 
religion, we admire their superiority — 
they seem to throw contempt on the 
whole state of the world ; theirs is the 
tone of a youthful giant, who is sent 
to work revolutions. But they enter 
74 



Heroism ^ 

an active profession, and the forming 
Colossus shrinks to the common size 
of man. The magic they used was the 
ideal tendencies, which always make 
the actual ridiculous ; but the tough 
world had its revenge the moment they 
put their horses of the sun to plough in 
its furrow. They found no example 
and no companion, and their heart 
fainted. What then ? The lesson 
they gave in their first aspirations, is 
yet true, and a better valour, and a 
purer truth, shall one day execute their 
will, and put the world to shame. Or 
why should a woman liken herself to 
any historical woman, and think, be- 
cause Sappho, or Sevigne, or De Stael, 
or the cloistered souls who have had 
genius and cultivation, do not satisfy 
the imagination, and the serene Themis, 
75 



^ Heroism 

none can, — certainly not she. Why 
not ? She has a new and unattempted 
problem to solve, perchance that of the 
happiest nature that ever bloomed. 
Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk 
serenely on her way, accept the hint 
of each new experience, try, in turn, 
all the gifts God offers her, that she 
may learn the power and the charm, 
that like a new dawn radiating out of 
the deep of space, her new-born being 
is. The fair girl, who repels interfer- 
ence by a decided and proud choice of 
influences, so careless of pleasing, so 
wilful and lofty, inspires every be- 
holder with somewhat of her own 
nobleness. The silent heart encour- 
ages her ; O friend, never strike sail to 
a fear. Come into port greatly, or sail 
with God the seas. Not in vain you 
76 



Heroism 



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live, for every passing eye is cheered 
and refined by the vision. 

The characteristic of a genuine hero- 
ism is its persistency. AH men have 
wandering impulses, fits and starts of 
generosity. But when you have re- 
solved to be great, abide by yourself, 
and do not weakly try to reconcile 
yourself with the world. The heroic 
cannot be the common, nor the com- 
mon heroic. Yet we have the weakness 
to expect the sympathy of people in 
those actions whose excellence is that 
they outrun sympathy, and appeal to a 
tardy justice. If you would serve your 
brother, because it is fit for you to 
serve him, do not take back your words 
when you find that prudent people do 
not commend you. Be true to your 
own act, and congratulate yourself if 



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you have done something strange and 
extravagant, and broken the monotony 
of a decorous age. It was a high 
counsel that I once heard given to a 
young person : " Always do what 
you are afraid to do." A simple manly 
character need never make an apology, 
but should regard its past action with 
the calmness of Phocion, when he 
admitted that the event of the battle 
was happy, yet did not regret his dis- 
suasion from the battle. 

There is no weakness or exposure 
for which we cannot find consolation 
in the thought — this is a part of my 
constitution, part of my relation and 
office to my fellow creature. Has 
nature convenanted with me, that I 
should never appear to disadvantage, 
never make a ridiculous figure ? Let 
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US be generous of our dignity as well 
as of our money. Greatness once and 
for ever has done with opinion. We 
tell our charities, not because we wish 
to be praised _ for them, not because 
we think they have great merit, but 
for our justification. It is a capital 
blunder ; as you discover when another 
man recites his charities. 

To speak the truth, even with some 
austerity, to live with some rigour 
of temperance, or some extremes of 
generosity, seems to be an asceticism 
which common good nature would 
appoint to those who are at ease and in 
plenty, in sign that they feel a brother- 
hood with the great multitude of suf- 
fering men. And not only need we 
breathe and exercise the soul by assum- 
ing the penalties of abstinence, of debt, 
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^ Heroism 

of solitude, of unpopularity, but it be- 
hooves the wise man to look with a 
bold eye into those rarer dangers which 
sometimes invade men, and to familiar- 
ise himself with disgusting forms of 
disease, with sounds of execration, and 
the vision of violent death. 

Times of heroism are generally times 
of terror, but the day never shines, in 
which this element may not work. 
The circumstances of man, we say, 
are historically somewhat better in this 
country, and at this hour, than perhaps 
ever before. More freedom exists for 
culture. It will not now run against 
an axe, at the first step out of the 
beaten track of opinion. But whoso 
is heroic will always find crises to try 
his edge. Human virtue demands her 
champions and martyrs, and the trial 
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of persecution always proceeds. It is 
but the other day that the brave Lovejoy 
gave his breast to the bullets of a mob 
for the rights of free speech and opinion, 
and died when h was better not to live. 
I see not any road of perfect peace, 
which a man can walk, but to take 
counsel of his own bosom. Let him 
quit too much association, let him go 
home much, and establish himself in 
those courses he approves. The un- 
remitting retention of simple and high 
sentiments in obscure duties is harden- 
ing the character to that temper which 
will work with honour, if need be, in 
the tumult, or on the scaffold. What- 
ever outrages have happened to men 
may befall a man again ; and very easily 
in a republic, if there appear any signs 
of a decay of religion. Coarse slander, 



^ Heroism 

fire, tar and feathers, and the gibbet, 
the youth may freely bring home to 
his mind, and with what sweetness of 
temper he can, and inquire how fast he 
can fix his sense of duty, braving such 
penalties, whenever it may please- the 
next newspaper, and a sufficient number 
of his neighbours, to pronounce his 
opinions incendiary. 

It may calm the apprehension of 
calamity, in the most susceptible heart, 
to see how quick a bound nature has 
set to the utmost infliction of malice. 
We rapidly approach a brink over 
which no enemy can follow us. 

** Let them rave : 
Thou art quiet in thy grave. " 

In the gloom of our ignorance of what 

shall be, in the hour when we are deaf 

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to the higher voices, who does not envy 
them who have seen safely to an end 
their manful endeavour ? Who that 
sees the meanness of our politics, but 
inly congratulates Washington, that he 
is long already wrapped in his shroud, 
and for ever safe ; that he was laid sweet 
in his grave, the hope of humanity not 
yet subjugated in him ? Who does not 
sometimes envy the good and brave, 
who are no more to suffer from the 
tumults of the natural world, and await 
with curious complacency the speedy 
term of his own conversation with 
finite nature ? And yet the love that 
will be annihilated sooner than treacher- 
ous has already made death impossible, 
and affirms itself no mortal, but a 
native of the deeps of absolute and 
inextinguishable being. 
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